Tourists in Cyprus bear the brunt of museum dispute

The tourists in Cyprus are most likely to find the island’s museums closed this weekend unless an ongoing dispute between the staff and the government authorities is sorted out soon. The official person in charge at the antiquities department, Maria Hadjicosti stated that there has been an issue over the overtime payments to the guards of the museum and not the general staff.

The guards had been upset for quite some time as they had received a circular from the finance ministry stating that they would only receive half of their hard earned over time money. The other half as per the circular would be disbursed in terms of getting time off from the work. The guards have felt extremely let down by this decision and have warned that this is going to lead to further problems in the Museums’ operations. Until the time the demand for receiving complete over time money is met, the museum would be allowed to operate only during the civil servant hours.

Maria stated that museums on the island operate at different times. However all of them are going to close at 2:30 p.m. in the coming week. There is the possibility that if the dispute is not resolved soon, the museums might remain shut all weekend. In our opinion this is going to have a huge impact on tourism. Tourists from all over the world, who visit this island, look forward to visiting these museums. Finding them closed is going to result in a lot of negative publicity for the island.